The Lost Year

Calabresi writes that Bush's old talking points just weren't doing it anymore. "In the end, it is the familiarity -- critics would say the lack of credibility -- of those themes that provide the answer to Bush's risky invocation of Vietnam. He has so often emphasized the disastrous ramifications of failure and the potential glories of victory, they no longer hold the same currency with a war-tired public. So, given how low support for the war is, why not add the specter of Vietnam to the costs of defeat? And why not suggest that victory in Iraq could help expunge the indignity of America's loss in Vietnam?"

Alec MacGillis writes for washingtonpost.com's The Trail that the Republican candidates seeking to replace Bush "have been sounding this theme for weeks, to far less notice."

Vietnam Opinion Watch

Jim Hoagland writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Desperate presidents resort to desperate rhetoric -- which then calls new attention to their desperation. President Bush joined the club this week by citing the U.S. failure in Vietnam to justify staying on in Iraq.

"Bush's comparison of the two conflicts rivals Richard Nixon's 'I am not a crook' utterance during Watergate and Bill Clinton's 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,' in producing unintended consequences of a most damaging kind for a sitting president."

Rosa Brooks writes in her Los Angeles Times column: "For most Americans, the lessons of Vietnam were reasonably clear before we invaded Iraq and have been painfully reinforced by the ongoing disaster there:

"Don't fight needless wars; don't go blundering around in countries where you don't know the language, history or culture; don't underestimate the power of nationalism, ethnicity and religion to bind together -- or tear apart -- people whose interests otherwise seem to diverge or converge; and, most of all, don't imagine that military force can solve fundamentally political problems.

"But the president, who has his own very special set of history books, drew the public's attention to some entirely different lessons from Vietnam. . . .

"To Bush, the tragedy of the Vietnam War is that we didn't let it drag on for another decade or so."

E. J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Bush compared Iraq to Vietnam this week, and there is at least one area in which the metaphor is instructive: When we failed to achieve our objectives in Indochina, we kept hoping that a new South Vietnamese government would solve our problems for us. But our repeated interventions in Saigon's politics did not improve the situation -- and arguably made it worse."

The New York Times editorial board writes: "The real lesson of Vietnam for Iraq is clear enough. America lost that war because a succession of changes in South Vietnamese leadership, many of them inspired by Washington, never produced an effective government in Saigon. . . .

"The short-term sequels of American withdrawal from Indochina were brutal, as the immediate sequels of America's withdrawal from Iraq will surely be. But the American people rightly concluded that with no way to win a military victory, there could be no justification for allowing thousands more United States troops to die in Vietnam. Those deaths would not have changed the sequels to the war, just as more American deaths will not change the sequel to the war in Iraq. Once the war in Southeast Asia was over, America's domestic divisions healed, its battered armed forces were rebuilt and the nation was much better positioned to deal with the relentless challenges of global leadership.

"If Mr. Bush, whose decision to inject Vietnam into the debate over Iraq was bizarre, took the time to study the real lessons of Vietnam, he would not be so eager to lead America still deeper into the 21st century quagmire he has created in Iraq. Following his path will not rectify the mistakes of Vietnam, it will simply repeat them."